Why care about cities? Because they matter to human flourishing
Mark Milke, Calgary Herald, Nov 3, 2022
When local voters across British Columbia recently ushered in a new slate of mayors and councillors— Vancouver’s wholesale turnover being the best example — citizens sent a message: We like our cities and we love our neighbourhoods, so stop making them less desirable with ill-advised policies that exacerbate homelessness and crime.
There’s a valid reason why voters react that way: because cities are incubators for what is best about humanity. From Manhattan to Marrakech, cities can be understood as large “petri dishes” for experiments in human flourishing and in multiple ways.
For example, entrepreneurs can test-market a new product in a city in a way that could never happen in a village, where the population is lacking for a proper test.
The arts also benefit from urban environments. Think of Renaissance-era Florence and its flowering of learning, art and culture. Florence was not large by today’s standards. But the Italian town was big enough for enough talent and money to be in proximity and for artistic creations to be created, bought and then displayed in churches, museums and homes. That’s a 500-year-old development from which we still benefit today.
Scientific discoveries also occur with what is best described as the cross-fertilization of people and ideas. This was true before the internet but is still relevant now, given the routine need to check, discuss and refine one’s theories with others. That process is always made easier by walking down the hallway or a drive across town to another lab to discuss one’s hypotheses and results. That’s why the top five locations for science worldwide are Beijing, Boston, New York, San Francisco/San Jose and Shanghai.
Beyond the commercial, artistic and scientific potential of cities, consider what else cities bring, including experiments in how to govern ourselves.
In the western world, the best example of this civic development is ancient Athens. Citizens of the Greek city-state debated concepts such as justice and the “good life.” Athens was also the birthplace of a nascent form of democracy.
Or ponder how social movements arose in cities. Early feminists who campaigned for the vote and other rights would have faced even higher hurdles if isolated from each other in villages. It helped that early British suffragists lived in cities such as London and Manchester where suffragist societies were founded in 1867.
In Canada, women won the right to vote federally and in most provinces by the 1920s. However, they still could not be appointed to the Senate. In 1927, Emily Murphy invited Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby — the Famous Five — to her home in Edmonton. It was there that they strategized and came up with the now-famous “Persons Case.” Although they lost at the Supreme Court of Canada in 1927, they drove that case forward to what was then the final court of appeal, the Privy Council of England, which overturned the Canadian decision. Being in close contact matters to outcomes, including necessary reforms.
The internet now allows ideas and interactions (good or bad) to go viral daily regardless of location. But certain aspects of human flourishing are still only possible in a city because specialization requires a mass of people nearby. Think of architects and engineers who design and build skyscrapers. The art deco masterpiece, the Chrysler Building, could never have been built in a Prairie town. There was no market for such office space. Its builders needed a metropolis, New York City.
Similarly, ponder great urban parks such as Manhattan’s Central Park, Mount Royal in Montreal and Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
Or consider the urban beauty of Kyoto, Japan, where the combination of temple architecture, parks and nature offer up red, yellow and gold sacrifices in autumn.
Another example of such urban exquisiteness exists in Singapore where office buildings are required to include parks within their design. In that city-state, a “biophilic” skyscraper just opened with four storeys of tropical fauna and 80,000 plants.
In theory, such expensive, design-intensive projects could be built anywhere. In practice, great parks require metropolises and their money.
Commerce and beauty also exist in smaller centres as do the possibilities for other forms of human accomplishment. But the massive populations of cities plus money allows for specialization and human flourishing on a unique scale.
Back to voters and elections: Cities are akin to a living organism where everyone can potentially thrive. It’s why cities matter. It is also why politicians and others should be careful not to wreck urban environments, be it with counter-productive crime, housing or suffocating tax policies, or with any other policies that can harm cities.
Mark Milke is the executive director of The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. His newest book is The Victim Cult: How the grievance culture hurts everyone and wrecks civilizations. Image credit: Pixabay.